Ray Drew Gallery
Molly Altman
Mortal Beings
Sculpture & Installation
SEPTEMBER 10 – NOVEMBER 6
Reception September 10 5-7pm
The making of these works deals directly with the idea of demise as generative. I gather botanical material from outside my studio, repeatedly coating the plants in liquid porcelain before subjecting them to the extreme heat of firing. The process involves a violent transition: in the kiln, the organic body is incinerated, while the porcelain surrounding it is vitrified into an enduring ceramic form—shifting the plant’s ephemeral existence onto an entirely different timescale. Despite the destruction, what emerges is not annihilation, but another state of being.
Mortal Beings does not attempt to reconcile the beauty and brutality of the natural world. Instead, the exhibition recognizes them as inseparable. Through an examination of material, plant, and animal life, the work looks beyond the human body for ways of understanding death and grief. Across vastly different scales of existence, living requires continual passages between states—growth and decomposition, preservation and destruction, death and regeneration. Mortality is not the opposite of being alive, but one of its conditions. – Molly Altman
802 National Ave, Las Vegas NM 87701
Located on the first floor of Thomas C. Donnelly Library.
MON -FRI 8-5pm, SUN 1-5pm – When classes are in session
Molly Altman is a ceramic artist who works directly with her local floral ecology to create intricate porcelain sculptures. Molly obtained a BA in ceramics from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont in 2019. Her experience includes Artist Residencies at Green River Pottery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Recipiente Estudio in Mexico City, Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology in Loch Lomond, California, and the Carbondale Clay Center in Carbondale, Colorado. She has taught and shown work nationally and internationally and her works are featured in private and public collections including the Bennington College Permanent Collection and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. Molly currently lives and works in Carbondale, Colorado.
